BARRUS – Riana Dee Barrus, 26, of Taylorsville, Utah, died March 5, 2008, at the Huntsman Cancer Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, of adverse effects of chemotherapy for metastatic melanoma. Funeral services were held March 8, 2008, at the Fairview Chapel with Bishop Zane Hathaway conducting.

Riana was born Feb. 13, 1982, in Alamogordo, N.M., and was adopted by Dwight M. and J. Cleone Corsi Barrus that same month. Riana grew up in White Rock, N.M., one of two communities in Los Alamos County. Her schooling was in White Rock and Los Alamos. She graduated from seminary in 2000. Although she did not complete high school, she received her GED in 2001 and graduated from Job Corps in business in 2002.Riana was full of fun and loved jumping on trampolines, swinging on the high swings her dad had made, riding a motorcycle, swimming, hiking, downhill skiing and water skiing. Her friends were very important to her, and she had many in her life; she never wanted to lose one. She also liked to paint pictures and played the piano.Riana was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.Riana worked at various jobs and in various places. She loved being a server at restaurants and interacting with the people that came to eat. She also did clerical work at several different places.After her parents moved to Star Valley in 2004, she came a few months later.She met Levi L. Steed, and they married April 9, 2005, in Osmond, Wyo. They were later divorced.Although Riana was born with physical conditions that she dealt with all her life and that caused her much distress, she was a cheerful, positive individual with a ready smile. She had a quick wit and loved an argument.Having grown up in a small town with “nothing to do,” she thought Salt City and the city life were wonderful.She was diagnosed with melanoma in February 2006, underwent chemotherapy that same year; but it reoccurred in October 2007. She died during the third cycle of chemo this year.Survivors include her parents of Fairview and a brother, Rigel C. Barrus, of Salt Lake City.In her memory, a fresh-water well is being built in Cambodia and will be called Riana’s Well.